November 21, 2017

094: Daring to be Diverse: The Power of Parity in the Boardroom w/Coco Brown

The majority of men on public company boards don’t believe that diversity actually makes a difference to the bottom line. What is the fight like for the people who are at the forefront of changing this paradigm? Why should companies want different perspectives around the boardroom table? What is cognitive diversity and relational diversity, and the other various layers of diversity we need in the world? On this episode, Coco Brown, the founder and CEO of Athena Alliance talks about creating parity in the boardroom.

If you’ve always played the game the way you’ve played it and you don’t think about the new way to play it, you miss out on a lot. -Coco Brown

Takeaways

For the most part companies recruit for qualifications and not character.

Why women opt-out of the corporate world: they presume they won’t be supported because they are an underrepresented group.

It’s necessary to get the men speaking about diversity because men listen to men.

At the start of the show, Coco talked about the origins of Athena Alliance, and why the majority of public company boards don’t have diversity. Next we talked about the danger of getting hung up on what we think men and women can or can’t do. We also spoke about why digital companies are so different, and why we need to have more men speaking about diversity.

We also spoke about:

The value of varying perspectives and life experiences

Layers of diversity

Diversity and meritocracy

Why women opt-out of the business world

The most common male biases and how to get rid of them

Across the board, people in the world are still not equal, and the challenge in the context of business is that women and minorities don’t have the equal opportunity to change the dynamic, and change the way things work. This is a very sensitive time for minorities because they’re tired of not having opportunities, and that’s why diversity is such a necessary conversation right now. Boards are the stewards of the long-term success of the company, and they have to design healthy companies at all levels. Varying perspectives, from varying backgrounds are valuable and important to the health of our business landscape.

Guest Bio

Coco is the founder and CEO of The Athena Alliance, an organization dedicated to advancing diversity in the boardroom with a robust membership and match delivery model anchored in her deep connection to community building, executive consulting, and professional services. Go to https://athenaalliance.org/ for more information.

...more